Hungry Man
by Nonchey Niente
Summary: Paul Weston is the hungriest man in New York.
1. Chapter 1

This story is set some time after the season two finale, which left Paul Weston in a reasonable place, from which we all hope he can begin to re-build his life.

With the show's future still unknown, I simply couldn't resist dredging Paul's depths a little more, to see what could be brought to the surface ...

Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. On the contrary - _they own ME_.

Paul Weston is the hungriest man in New York.

He'd fallen asleep in his chair after his last patient had left, hours and hours ago. The day, what remained of it, had slipped out the back way whilst he slept and now his apartment is dark and cold and cavernous and more unfriendly than he could ever remember it feeling since the day he had moved in. Brooklyn moves and pulses around him outside, perfectly in character, but the warmth of the city somehow fails to get through to him.

He glares balefully at the contents of his refrigerator. Unusually, none of the ingredients seem to inspire him towards staggering heights of culinary excellence. Normally he loves to cook but since it has become an everyday necessity rather than a leisure pursuit, his passion has cooled a little. There was a time not so long ago when he adored to busy himself in a kitchen - the activity, the sense of achievement that he got from preparing, say, chowder or a rice pilau from scratch did his heart good (if not his waistline.)

What's worse is that today, Paul Weston really does need a cold beer and lots of stodgy comfort food, especially after his last patient -the chef from the local bistro that Paul had begun to frequent regularly. Not any more. With the chef now on Paul's books, he realises sourly, the bistro is firmly out of bounds. He can't go in there again. The chef had come to Paul's office late this afternoon and he'd been wearing his work clothes; reeking pungently if innocently of garlic, paprika, tarragon, chicken stock and even - Paul closes his eyes to try and better hold the smell down in his mind - raw beef.

The sound of his door chime makes him jump. He is standing in the darkness, illuminated only by the light of his fridge. (If the state of the refrigerator is testament to his ongoing problems in adjusting to life as a singleton, his reaction to the new doorbell is even more so.)

He moves without a great deal of enthusiasm towards his front door.

"Who is it?"

"Pizza delivery!"

"I didn't order pizza."

"No, but I did. And I'm starving. Open the door, Paul!"

For a moment Paul thinks that the woman on the other side of the door is Mia - Mia, who at one time was so intent on regaining control of her therapy sessions that she had turned up one morning with coffee and breakfast - supposedly for the two of them to share together - and had marched through to his kitchen diner like Hitler over-running Poland.

"I didn't order pizza," he says again, but dully, in a daze. For he has realised who the woman on the other side of the door is. It's Laura.

To Be Continued.


	2. Chapter 2

_"I didn't order pizza," he says again, but dully, in a daze. For he has realised who the woman on the other side of the door is. It's Laura._

_///_

They take a long and not especially comfortable moment to look at each other, for the first time in over a year.

"You cut your hair!"

"So did you. Looks great. What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

Laura Hill sits forward in her chair, loooking earnest. "Paul, it's just - you won't believe it. I have this incredible piece of equipment that I've just started using. It's called a - oh, now, let me get this right - it's called a Personal Computer."

He looks at her.

"I Googled you, dummy."

Paul drags a rueful smile onto his face and drops it there.

"Come on now. You have to tell me. What're you doing here Laura?"

"You always this unfriendly to women who come bearing beer and pizza?" she asks, watching him pick the olives off his second - no, third - slice. He slurps his beer thirstily. She finds herself hypnotized, dazzled by this unexpected display of his appetites. She's never seen him eat or drink - other than a glass of water or a cup of tea - and until now he's always seemed so .. ascetic.

He grins, fleetingly, rather sheepishly. "No, of course not. But you have to allow me a little curiosity."

Laura cocks her head on one side in a gesture that reminds Paul of a bird. "Did you think you would never see me again? Ever?"

"Well, yes. I guess that's what I thought. It felt kind of final, our last meeting. It was probably easier for me in the long run to file it away under 'Over and Done With Now'."

She looks sadly at him. Seeing her look he says,

"But I hope it's needless for me to say that I am, actually, very happy to see you here. Especially with beer and pizza. God, this is truly disgusting." He gesticulates at her with a piece of wilted pizza. "But I'm loving it."

She's long since finished her own slice and is happy to sit and watch him eat - or, rather, massacre - the pizza. She sips from her own can of beer.

"What are you doing here really Laura?"

"I came to say goodbye."

He lays the crust carefully back into the box, wipes his hands on a paper napkin, and, leaning back in his chair, 'assumes the position'. She waits, thinking - all he needs to do now is cross his legs and turn his head slightly and the picture will be complete. Sure enough this is what he does. Paul Weston, refreshed by food and alcohol, is back in therapist mode.

///

She's going to South Africa the very next morning, having accepted a job at a teaching hospital in Durban. "It's time to give something back," she says simply. Not meeting his gaze. She talks a little bit more. Her father died. She talks about the problems she'd had settling his affairs (Paul nods sagely and tells her the same has happened to him.) Then there were the issues she had selling her house, about the shitty exchange rate, about the party she'd thrown for all her friends and how she'd felt when she realised that all of her friends, it seemed, were men.

Paul clears his throat as prelude to a subject he evidently finds uncomfortable. "Thanks for agreeing to give the deposition ..."

Laura's gaze drifts down. "Yeah. That was a real 'What the fuck?' moment for me, I have to tell you. Do you know what's happening?"

"They got thrown out of court. The judge who looked at it said there was no case to answer."

"I could have told them that."

They talk. He even gives her a severely truncated version of the story of what is happening between Kate and himself. How he is trying to get used to living alone, and only seeing his children at weekends. He tries hard to sound thoughtful and objective about all of these things. Now he's beginning to relax, to get over the shock of seeing her again, some of his original pain forgotten. It feels good to unpack pieces of himself, like a man with an over-stuffed picnic basket, laying things out on a blanket for her consideration. It's good to be able to use his charm, humour and ... he realises suddenly that he is flirting. He's dangerously close to courting her, fourteen months after it is too late to do so, displaying for her like a peacock with feathers the colour of conversation.

She loves to listen to him, loves to hear his reminiscences and stories from his life. They seemed to be so few and far between, back when they were therapist and patient. He was right - it was all very one-sided. They run out of news. The lamp light folds round them like a comfortable old blanket. "You know," he says, after dispatching most of the pizza as humanely as possible. "When I was at college, they were having this fund-raising thing one year. Trying to get money for new gym equipment or something, I don't know. Anyway - there was this, this silent auction. And .. I really don't know how they persuaded me this was a good idea - one of the prizes was a kiss on the lips."

One thing Paul remembers liking so much about Laura is how quick she is. "From you," she says, and it's not a question. She grins delightedly.

"From me. Raised just over thirty-seven bucks, as I recall. I ... uh, I only got a little worried when I saw two _guys_ writing down bids."

She laughs. "What would you have done if one of them had won?"

"I have absolutely no idea," he says thoughtfully.

"So - what. You were Champion Kisser or something in your college? What'd they do, make you wear a red rosette or something? I think you're making this up." She's laughing at him.

"No, no. I'm not. It's in my yearbook and everything."

"Show me," she says. For Laura is intrigued. She tries to imagine Paul at twenty, before life had coursed all over his face, cutting its channels and dumping its sediment.

Paul has a stab at looking modest, but he's actually very pleased. He realises how good it is for him just to be having a real conversation with someone, a proper, two-way conversation not strained and tainted and weighed down by therapeutic good intentions and professional protocol. It felt wonderful to be talking about himself for once, to someone whose interest was personal and genuine.

He's missed having a friend.

He stands up, scattering pizza crumbs. Laura watches his ass unashamedly as he crosses the room. He rifles around in a bookcase. "I'm not sure I remember where it is," he says, putting his hand straight on it.

"That's bullshit, Paul."

He pulls the yearbook out from its place at the very end of a row of encyclopedias, where it sits unobtrusively so as not to draw attention to itself. This is what Paul does to his own life and personality all day long, when he is working. He hides it behind his profession.

Mostly.

Laura leafs through the book. It's a stark reminder of the difference in their ages. It comes from a time before Laura was born. She finds Paul's picture and stares intently at the young man there. It's unmistakably him - just look at all that hair, after all - but she's still taken aback by the intensity of his gaze.

"Boy. You sure look like an arrogant bastard."

"Oh, I was." He nods earnestly. "Completely."

She considers his older self carefully, as though looking at him for the first time, seeking signs that the arrogance might still be there, but is maybe now disguised. He looks back at her, also wondering how she has changed since he last saw her. Her hair is shorter of course, presumably in preparation for a hotter climate. He understands that - a mere two days of a New York City summer had sent him barrelling into the nearest barber shop for a short back and sides. She isn't wearing any makeup or jewellery.

He steps out to the kitchen to fix coffee and, after a few moments she follows him. She is waving a slip of paper at him. He recognises it as a check, and it seems to have his name on it.

"What's that for?"

She looks at it. Reads. "'Doctor Paul Weston. Forty one dollars and thirty seven cents only.'" She moves closer, showing him what she has done. "Look, I've outbid that other girl at auction. I claim my prize."

Oh, how he had missed that mischievous look, he realises. But he cools off again pretty fast.

"Don't do this, Laura. Please. There's nothing worse than a ... a sympathy seduction."

Laura's demeanour changes abruptly. "You know Paul, for a man of such remarkable intelligence, you can be incredibly fucking stupid sometimes."


	3. Chapter 3

The Laura of old probably would have grabbed her purse and left without closing the door. This new, improved model seems to have a bit more staying power; to illustrate this she takes up residence on his couch again, pulling her feet underneath her in a gesture that is both coquettish and somehow vulnerable. Paul brings coffee and sits carefully on the other end of the couch, conscious of not wanting to be in therapist mode, and yet almost helpless to do anything about it.

He feels reckless. The sugar and alcohol in his blood, perhaps. He decides to launch without looking at his usual pre-flight checklist.

"We're still not past this point, are we .." he says slowly, peering into the depths of his coffee, as if it might answer some fundamental question for him. "You used to get so angry at me. Frustrated, because I wouldn't .. wouldn't _fuck_ you. But that's the whole point, Laura. I never WAS going 'fuck' you."

She's a little taken aback by his sudden candour. "What are you talking about?"

"You don't know me very well, Laura. Well: How could you - our relationship was based on a series of very one-sided conversations. You assumed that I was pretty much like every other guy in your life since David, and that you could manipulate me just how you wanted me. Into bed. Very flattering. It would have been fun for a while, maybe, until such time as I disappointed and abused you and became yet another in a long line of men who disappointed and abused you, and who were the whole reason you came to me in the first place."

"So ... now you're telling me you never wanted to fuck me? At all? I don't believe you. You're lying. I can tell when I am having an effect on a man. I've made a life's career of it. And I KNOW I was affecting you. I know it Paul."

"I never said you weren't affecting me, Laura. Just that I didn't want to 'fuck' you. Or 'bang' you. Or 'have' you. Or 'nail' you. Or 'take' you. Or 'screw' you."

She can feel herself getting angry with him. Again. It feels almost comforting in its familiarity, that pain. They are right back where they started.

"Oh, I see - you were above all that ... all that bestiality, were you? Some kind of higher form of human evolution?" Her sneer is undisguised.

Weston shakes his head slowly, fixing her with that odd sidelong glance of his that even now she finds horribly attractive. She's used to men looking at her very directly, with undisguised interest. And still seeing nothing. How ironic that the one man in her life so far who has seen her - really seen her - does it kind of sideways. Paul can look at her out of the corner of his eye and still be more direct with her than any other man she can remember.

Paul clears his throat again, but more quietly. "No," he says. "I was just a guy who'd been married to the same woman for over twenty years and who was utterly flabbergasted to find himself in love with someone completely different."

There's one of those long, long silences. But they are both used to that by now. Eventually he continues. "So .. remember that day, when I came to your house, after Alex's funeral?" She nods, thinking _What a stupid question. How could I forget that?_ "I wanted to be there and I wanted to be with you, find out what it was like. To be in love with someone else. But I was scared, too."

"Well, you certainly made that perfectly plain." Laura stares at the back of her hand, on which she is projecting painful mental images of Paul gasping and struggling, half-collapsed over the hood of his car.

"Let me finish, please," he says with quiet authority. "I wanted to be there, but I was scared. Of a whole host of different things. Sex - I already knew so much about what you liked." He takes a sip of his coffee. His voice changes, gets lower. "You know, if I'd wanted to, I could have pressed every single one of your buttons, one by one ... like a naughty kid outside an apartment block, pressing every single entry buzzer." Paul points with his finger, pantomiming the little boy's actions as he speaks. He smiles again, slowly. The expression moves across his face like snow melting in hot sun.

She shifts on the sofa to try and disguise her own discomfort, but also her excitement at the idea of Paul pressing her buttons. His easy smile makes her feel a kind of growing ache somewhere very low down inside her gut. It's like her insides want to crawl along the floor towards him.

But Paul's smile fades as he too starts watching the horrible re-run of the events leading up to his panic attack. "When I asked if you were over me; that's when I started to feel sick with the nerves."

"Oh, for Christ's sake. You're saying I was moving too fast for you?" she cries incredulously. "After a whole YEAR?"

"Partly, yes. I knew we were going to go to bed together and I wanted it to happen. But then, when you stood up and sort of ... you know, stalked off ... down the corridor, just expecting me to follow you, two things just popped into my head from nowhere. Two memories."

Laura listens. She's become rather good at listening, presumably after taking lessons from a true master of the art.

"What did you remember?" she prompts.

"I remembered a client of mine. From a long, long time ago. She's dead now, died in a road accident about seven years ago. She was my patient last time I was here in the city."

"Who was she?"

"She was a very high class prostitute."

"And I reminded you of her? Gee, thanks Paul." Laura pretends to look suitably mortified at Paul's comparison but he raises an imperious forefinger as if to stem any further outburst from her.

"She was telling me once, about how she differentiated between what she did for a living, and her own personal sexual life. How she separated the two. Her own relationships and needs. Anyway, she told me that, as part of the very earliest negotiations between herself and her client, she stipulated that she wouldn't under any circumstances kiss the guy on the lips. Never. Not once. She'd do virtually anything else, but she'd never kiss a john as part of the - part of the proceedings."

Laura's eyes were glazed and unfocussed. "I think I saw that in a film once ... and, I never kissed you," she states blandly. "I tried to, that day in your office, when dad was admitted to the hospital and I came over. But you stopped me. I remember."

Paul remembers too. How he'd caught her head between his palms and held her gently away from his face. Of how her hair had felt underneath his fingertips. Of how he'd imagined he was trying to force tiny tendrils of his consciousness out through his hands and into her brain, trying to get her to understand without him having to explain it. He could tell that he had reached her body, but he needed to be in touch with her mind.

"What was the second memory?" she asks again.

Paul shifts his body into a more comfortable position on the couch. "Uh .. I also thought about how you told me that Alex, when he and you were having sex the first time, how he was propped up on his elbows and how he deliberately moved his head away from you when you tried to kiss him. How he seemed so detached from you and from what was going on between you. How it was mechanical. Procedural."

"Is that how I made you feel, Paul?"

"It's how I felt, yes. But you didn't make me feel it. My feelings are mine, Laura. Anyway, I got up and I followed you into the bedroom and you were already starting to undress and I thought - 'Yes, but _not like THIS!_' That's when the anxiety attack really took a hold."

"You scared the shit out of me. I thought you were having a heart attack at first."

"They look a lot worse than they are. I've had them on and off since I was a teenager. Even ended up in the hospital once. I was with a patient and it came from nowhere. He ended up calling me an ambulance."

"God."

"Yeah. So, I had all of that going on in my head, plus everything that was happening with me at home, and Alex's death." Paul stops for a moment, drains his coffee, puts the empty cup on the table. "But the main thing I need you to understand is that I never wanted to fuck you Laura. There's a big difference for me ... between fucking and - " he hesitates. He's having problems finishing the sentence, which is not typical. He nearly laughs as Laura appears to prick up her ears. "No, never mind. You want more coffee?"

"Paul, you know, as an anaesthetist it's my professional opinion that you need to get out of your head and back into your body. You spend way too much time stuck inside your own mind, and you ignore what your body is telling you until it's too late."

"Well, actually, as a psychologist, it's MY professional opinion that my body is just reacting badly to things that are in my subconscious mind."

"The two aren't talking to each other properly, you mean?"

"Sort of."

///

He doesn't want more coffee, as a mater of fact. But he moves back into the kitchen. Again, she follows him, and perches neatly on the edge of his breakfast table. She plays idly with the fruit in the bowl there. She is a bird.

"I guess I'd better be going soon," she says. "My flight is at nine tomorrow morning." She stands up again, making tiny unnecessary adjustments to her clothing, playing for time. "It's been good to see you again, Paul. Really, really good. I'm glad I came." She combs her hair with her fingers, looking at her reflection in the kitchen window, which stares blankly back at her. He thinks, she's giving me time. Giving me the opportunity to move, to say something, to do something, to do ANYTHING. He stands leaning against his sink, motionless, his arms folded and one ankle crossed over the other. Closed off.

Laura wonders that she is still surprised by his lack of reaction. What had she really expected? She sighs inaudibly, crosses over to him and wordlessly kisses his cheek. It feels bristly under her lips. And then she leaves.

(Want more ..?)


	4. Chapter 4

Paul Weston is looking at the waters of a beautiful lake. It's the one he used to go to on occasions with his dad, to fish, and to sail model boats occasionally. Maybe it was here that he developed his love of sailing that was to be such an influence on him later in his life. It's a tranquil scene, very peaceful. He inhales deeply, flushing out New York's stench from his lungs, taking in clean new scents of pine and hot, rainwashed stones. He can feel the rough, splintery surface of the old wooden swimming deck deck he's sat on. The water smells sweet and coppery. In fact, he imagnes he can almost smell it twisting and evaporating in the heat of the day, for it is very, very hot. Sweat pools on his brow and drips into his eyebrows. An eider duck calls after a vanishing mate, sounding forlorn, sounding lonesome.

Paul's naked feet are already in the water, dangling off the edge of the deck. The water here is very deep, he knows. And cold. It's almost the exact same colour blue as his eyes. The water is powerfully inviting in a mesmeric sort of way; he feels like he's being hypnotized by the tiny ripples his ankles are making in its surface. The water frightens him at the same time as attracting him. He doesn't remember being scared of the lake when he was a child. Maybe it's only as an adult, as you become more and more aware of the possibility of your own death, that fears like these come out.

There's no boat. The only way Paul can regain the shore is if he swims. Paul is a strong swimmer, but he can't seem to shake this terrible fear of the water.

It's so _deep_. Twenty-five feet, at least. And icy cold with fresh spring snow melt. It could kill him.

Paul tries to reason his way through the problem, just like he's been taught. If he goes in, what will happen? Will the shock of the cold paralyse the muscles in between his ribs, stop him breathing? Will the air go rushing out of his chest, leaving him to sink to the bottom, the grey blue water closing over his touseled head and helplessly grasping hands? Or would he find that he has the time and energy to hold on to the swimming deck again, before that were to happen?

Maybe he should just dive in and try to swim - try to reach the shingled beach before his energy and the last of the day's sun give out. But he's no longer as fit as he used to be. More doubts crowd into the spaces behind his eyes.

Or - should he just lie back, star-shaped, spread-eagled, and let the tide take him? Ride it out with only his lips and nose fully above the water? Floating like a corpse? No,, corpses are always face-in-the-water.

Paul is scared of drowning, even though he knows how to swim. He has become badly frightened of the water that he used to love so much. But he knows, in spite of his doubts and fears, that there is only one thing he can do. Only one real course of action left.

He steadies himself. Paul ... breathes. A crystal bead of sweat drips from the end of his nose and falls, in slow motion, into the lake. It makes tiny ripples in between his feet, and they mingle with the ripples already there. He stands up and, his toes hooked over the edge of the deck, he dives in.

///

"Paul, let go of me," she says evenly. He has caught up with her at his front door and is holding her wrist in his right hand. She keeps her back turned to him, hopefully making her continued intention to leave perfectly clear.

Paul looks down at his hand, and then up at the back of her head. "I .. I can't," he says, sounding faintly surprised. "I can't let go." Gently, and very slowly, like a fisherman, he pulls on her arm. She has to turn to face him, but almost doesn't recognise him. Something about the set of his shoulders startles her - he's different, he's changed, he's no longer trapped. She tries to see his eyes, but the light is very dim. There's a single, heavily-shaded lamp on over by the window, casting a half-hearted illumination on the couch that she recognises as being the one from his old place. Behind her she can just hear the quiet click and whirr of the oil and water wave machine on top of the bookcase. All things that should be comforting to her in their familiarity, their association with Paul.

He's reeling her in, steadily, inexorably. "I can't," he whispers, more to himself than to her, bending his head to kiss her. "I can't let go of you."

///

Being kissed by Paul Weston is, thinks Laura, a bit like climbing slowly into a warm and luxuriously perfumed bath at the end of a cold and very stressful day. Week. Month, even. She shivers, her skin confused by the sudden radical change in temperature, and gets goose bumps. Paul folds his arms around her like hot water.

She reaches up and finally - finally! - pushes her fingers into his hair, where they indulge themselves shamelessly.

In the last twelve months or so Laura has come to realise that her choices of partner have often been based on her own need to be in charge in the bedroom. She's always been attracted to men who, she senses, are not entirely comfortable with themselves, physically; men who are less confident or experienced than she is. He attraction to Paul stemmed from this same instinct - that he would be a man whom it would be easy to manipulate sexually - he was older, more conservative, unused to being admired, stuck in his ways after twenty-something years of being married to the same woman. Easy to flatter, to seduce. She'd walked into his office and right away had summed him up in her mind: Good-looking older guy, in danger of going to seed. Looks half-dead already. Married, like, _for ever_. Doesn't seem to care much about how he looks. Not enough sunshine, not enough exercise. And not enough SEX. He fit her profile perfectly, and she fell for him, just like always. That's what she'd thought, at first. But she deliberately didn't do anything about her feelings, not for a very long time. Not until after the encounter she'd had with that random guy in the bar, the one who'd followed her into the bathroom stall. That guy had freaked her out when she suddenly realised that she had misjudged him horribly - maybe because she was so drunk - and she'd had to call a halt to the proceedings as soon as she saw how _he_ was the one taking charge.

So why does she still want him so much?

Paul's lips have left hers and, brushing along the line of her jaw, start to work on the point just behind her ears where she is especially sensitive. But he already knows that, of course. She'd told him. He's in charge of these proceedings, and that frightens her. It excites her, too. She attempts to struggle, just a little bit, but his grip makes it pretty clear that she's not going anywhere. This turns her on even more, making her wonder if she herself has ever really listened to her body before now. She's aware of how warm he is - heat seems to come off him in waves, breaking over the reef of his blue cotton shirt. He seems thinner than she remembers, but that's all she remembers; she's never even seen him with sleeves rolled up. She knows the look of his face and his head, his throat and the V of his chest revealed by two undone shirt buttons, but that's all.

He's a real sensualist, she realises. This is what it was that turned her on watching him eat and drink. The sudden realisation that Paul is a creature ruled by his need for physical sensation, a craving that he suppresses most of the time.

"You're so fuckin' confusing .." she murmurs. He stops what he is doing, abruptly, and looks at her. He's standing very close, but not touching her. He seems suddenly to loom over her. In the past she'd always been wearing heels when they saw each other.

"It just feels right now," he says. The simplest answer is sometimes the best.

"What about all your .. your boundaries. Rules. Regulations?"

"Are you going to report me to the Ethics Committee?" he asks seriously. A question met with a question. Typical.

"No! That's not important right now. What's important now is whether you can live with this. In your mind."

"I'm not in my mind right now. I spend too much time in there as it is. You told me that a moment ago."

"I have to ask you this, Paul. Are you SURE?"

"Well. Yes. I admit I'm not normally this easy a lay, but you did buy me dinner, after all."

It takes her a moment to realise that he is teasing her. And, if Paul had been cracking a safe, this would be the point where the final tumbler falls into place, where he could put down his stethoscope and, with a satisfied look, grip the lever. Twist and pull it open.

///


	5. Chapter 5

"Come back inside with me," he says quietly, his voice even lower than the pale lamplight, so gentle she can barely hear him. There is a rushing, pulsing sound in her ears which she recognises as being like the sound your blood makes in your skull a few moments before you faint.

"Please, Laura. Don't go back to the hotel," he says. He has taken hold of her hand again and she watches as he runs his thumb languidly over the back of her knuckles. His hands have held her - if not literally, then at least figuratively - from the very beginning. In partnership with his eyes, Paul's hands are the most expressive part of him. She watches the passage of his thumb over the back of her hand as it sweeps back and forth with a rhythm all its own, noting how neatly trimmed his nails are, even as they shine with the faintest sheen of pizza grease. It is about the only sign of vanity she can detect in him.

Laura is finding it hard to move, difficult to think straight. She wonders how a single beer could render her so helpless. Or is she drunk on Paul Weston? Ridiculous! He is so close that if she were to inhale deeply enough, she could taste him. Outside it has started to rain fitfully, the squally wind picking up sheetfuls of water and throwing them against the sash window, as if challenging her to come out and play with the elements. The insolent weather suddenly reminds Laura of the photograph of Paul that she had seen earlier in the evening. How the half resentful stare, aimed directly at the camera-holder, had suggested a young man who normally reigned in his anger and his sadness but, like the a sudden change in the weather, could sometimes let it break out and spill over its deliberate containment.

Laura shivers at the idea of Paul Weston losing his self control, of being overwhelmed by anger or lust or even grief. That's why, she thinks distractedly, grief is such a powerful aphrodisiac. Suddenly, she wants to see that passion. And not in the way she had experienced when he had suffered his panic attack outside her house.

He bends lower and touches just the end of his nose and his lips to a very sensitive area behind her ear. "Stay," he says. It is no longer a question.

///

Hand laid protectively on the small of her back, Paul steers her inexorably towards his bedroom. "You've already met my kitchen," he says, waving his spare hand in an expansive gesture. "As you can see, I employed the finest best interior decorator in New York. The style is a fine example of early post-modernist '_Aprés Takeout_.' "

He's nervous, she thinks.

"Bathroom's there, should you need to ... avail yourself. Another architectural masterpiece. The plumbing is largely original."

Very nervous, she thinks. Hiding behind words, as always.

They reach the threshold of his bedroom. It is dark, a little cavernous, lit only by the yellowish sodium glare of the streetlights outside which infuses inwards through the half-opened shuttering. Laura turns and manages to stop Paul from saying any more with a well-appointed kiss. "You need to stop talking now," she says evenly, throwing him a look from under her lowered brows.

Paul draws a deep breath, trying to banish his nerves. Gina is in his head, saying _"There is no cooling off period, Paul! Ten minutes or ten years, it doesn't matter - "_ but he pushes the image aside, violently. Instead, he pictures himself swimming confidently and strongly, feeling the cool water slide gently over his body. Thinking about swimming, envisioning the strokes and how they coordinate with his legs kicking and the movement of his head as he breathes, is a way he has found to steady his breath. It helps with his asthma. Paul feels the oxygen seeping back into his body. Laura has begun work on the buttons of his shirt but he stops her, forcing himself to take the lead once again. He pushes her backwards into the room. Because the topography of the place is unknown to her she has to be guided entirely by his grip on her upper arms. His steering her in this way is, again, exciting. She's helpless, keeping her eyes fixed on him, trusting him to guide her and to steer her, just as she had always tried to do.

He pulls off the rest of her clothes, saying nothing, keeping his mouth occupied in other ways. He throws the bed covers back and invites her to get in. Then he steps backwards, into a patch of shadow, and undresses himself. Laura is struck by the contrast between Paul and Alex. Alex had been nothing short of a total exhibitionist, anxious to show her how well-honed he was, how he cared for himself physically. Looking back, she realises how insecure he must have been, judging by his behaviour. Paul is self-conscious and excited, but Laura senses an entirely different set of emotions coming from him as he drops his clothes on the floor, slides into the cold bed beside her and gathers her in to him. She feels as if he is taking possession of her. They shiver. The bed is freezing cold. She looks at him, again noting contrasts: Compared to Alex, Paul's skin is so pallid it seems almost to glow. The darkness of his hair is a feint, a dodge. His skin follows the lead set by his eyes.

He kisses her again, and the coldness vanishes. It feels like she is blushing with her entire body. She again pushes her fingers deep into his hair. A vehicle goes past outside and its headlamps track a pathway across the ceiling. The rain kicks up even more of a fuss, making the sash windows rattle. A perfect night to stay in and make love.

Any trace of the nerves that had been plaguing Paul have vanished along with the cold of the cotton bed linen. He now feels he's on familiar territory, as he drags the backs of his fingertips first in lazy circles over Laura's stomach and ribs and then elsewhere. His lips follow the trail blazed by his fingers. He teases her, but doesn't drag it out too long. Just long enough to find her special frequency and set her whole body humming in resonance with his touch. She comes once, twice, making him grin fiercely, almost triumphantly. He's playing her body for her like it is an instrument. She comes again and is finding it hard to catch her breath. He lets her relax for a moment before kneeling in front of her and pulling her legs up so her ankles come to rest on his shoulders.

This is not at all what Laura had expected. She'd been expecting to have to take the lead. She'd arrogantly assumed that Paul would be rendered next to immobile by her youth and her utter, undoubted sexiness. Laura has been fantasising about Paul for quite some time, but had always been shrewd enough to realise that reality was unlikely to come up to the standard set inside her head.

But what's happening now ... is a lot like what she had fantasised about.

Paul pushes into her, with a moan that sounds almost grateful. He is, in fact, a satisfyingly noisy lover. She likes that. Laura watches his face, fascinated by what she sees there. Without warning he looks up and returns her stare, holding her gaze unflinchingly, as if daring her to look deeper inside himself, to see him at his most vulnerable and at his most powerful. After a few moments he pulls her legs back down on either side of his hips and bends forwards to kiss her, his beard's beginnings scratching at her face and throat. She feels the unmistakable sensation that he is about to come and, to her surprise, she also climaxes. And as Paul finally gasps and spends himself inside her, Laura bursts into tears.

///

Just about any other guy she has ever been with would probably have freaked out at this point. Or, would have flapped around and made a fuss. Or, cracked some kind of lame joke about his prowess. But Paul just stays with her. He makes no effort to pull away, not even to make himself more comfortable. He adjusts his weight slightly to allow her to breathe more easily, and then just lies looking intently at her, catching his own breath. His face is calm, patient. Laura feels safe. She really lets go, sobbing noisily and productively, and isn't immune to the irony that whilst she was fantasising about seeing Paul lose control, it was actually SHE who needed to do exactly that, all along.

Outside, the recalcitrant weather begins to quieten down. As presently, so does Laura. Paul tilts down onto his side, his legs still all tangled up with hers, one arm thrown over her midriff. He pushes a lock of her hair back behind her ear.

"You can talk again now, if you want - " she says finally. He pulls the bed covers over the two of them.

He laughs. "I don't think I can." His eyes still have not left her face. "I think I've said everything, somehow." He lies there adoring her in silence, and whereas normally this expression on a man would set warning bells ringing in her head, Laura is enjoying his gaze. She reads the laugh lines on his cheeks, around his eyes and on his forehead. His face is like the pages of a familiar bed-time book. It calms her and soon she is asleep.

///

Sometime later they are both awake and ready again. She takes him first in her hands and then her mouth, before sitting astride him and accommodating him that way. This seems to have a very profound effect on him - for if Laura had been comparing her fantasies to reality last time, then this time it is definitely Paul's turn. He throws his arms up and grips the bedstead, allowing Laura full control. He groans. His head thrashes from side to side. He looks agonised. The pressure builds inside her and she comes, throwing her head back and crying out. Paul presses his hips upwards, over and over again, to meet her with his own climax.

Laura begins to collapse forwards on his chest.

"Oh, God. Don't move yet, please - " he pleads with her.

"Are you OK?"

The question is loaded. Paul opens his eyes. Laura maneuvers herself gingerly off him and sits watching his face. She runs her hand up and down his leg, as if trying to comfort him, though in truth she also just likes the feel of his thigh. She can't think that she had hurt him in some way, and yet his face looks distinctly uncomfortable.

"Paul ..?"

Paul is, indeed, very uncomfortable. He knows that he has to lie to Laura now. He's very far from OK, faced with the sudden realisation that he is about to lose Laura all over again. He has to look her in the eye and tell her a bare-faced lie, just as he did a year ago when she asked him, "_Do you want me?"_ and he had answered, _"No." _

"I'm fine," he says finally.

But of course, he isn't.

///

Paul Weston is the hungriest man in New York. He thinks about fresh Polish sesame seed bagels, or buttered croissants and cappuccino, or smoked fish kedgeree from the Punjabi place on 85th. He thinks about pecan waffles and freshly squeezed blood orange juice. Anything, anything at all, to keep him from thinking about Laura.

He'd woken, and she was gone.

Paul brews tea for himself, choosing a blend that transports him back to a summer in his childhood he spent on his uncle's smallholding in County Clare. He dumps an extra sugar into the mug, trying to treat his taste-buds and his depleted blood sugar. As he stirs the liquid absently, his eyes slowly falling out of focus, he recognises the unmistakable signs that he is feeling sorry for himself.

His eyelids close. He can still smell her.

This of all mornings, he has good reason to curse his excellent memory - the memory that got him through college and his professional training with an ease that seemed sometimes to border on arrogance. Paul is trying to think about food and trying to remember the breakfasts his aunt used to cook for him, but all he can see is Laura and, more disturbingly, Gina. Paul is drawn inexorably back to the weekend Kate went to Rome with her new lover instead of with him, the weekend he wanted to throw a party and cook for people and get a bit drunk and maybe get lucky with an old flame.

That weekend Paul had wanted to be witty and attractive; urbane and charming and sexy. He'd tried it out on Gina, and had ended up telling her that he was in love with Laura.

Paul looks around his empty apartment. His expression is bleak. He realises he is still stirring the tea and quits, throwing the spoon into the sink.

Gina had said to him, _"And then she'll leave you Paul. She'll leave."_

An airplane hefts itself across the still-leaden skies above Brooklyn, which is still trying to shrug off last night's rain. Is Laura on it? That one? The next one? Or the one that flew over forty-five minutes ago?

Paul Weston lifts his mug of heavily sugared Red Label Darjeeling and silently toasts his old mentor. And then he smiles.

Perhaps he'll make chowder today.

Finito.


End file.
